Case History
The second Jehovah’s Witness in Oryol to be prosecuted after Dane Dennis Christensen was a school physical education teacher, Sergey Skrynnikov. In February 2018, the investigator of the Investigative Committee for the Oryol Region, A.O. Kompaniets, opened a criminal case against the believer for “participation in the activities of an extremist organization.” Later, an inspection was carried out in his house, during which law enforcement officers did not find anything prohibited. Having neither evidence of guilt nor victims in the case, the prosecutor Naumova requested 3 years in a general regime colony for Sergey. On April 1, 2019, Gleb Noskov, a judge of the Zheleznodorozhny District Court of Orel, found the believer guilty and sentenced him to pay a fine of 350,000 rubles. The appellate instance did not change this decision. On October 9, 2019, a complaint was filed with the ECHR in the Skrynnikov case.
